Book Workshop

Collection 100 - Size and format

Aforementioned, I was inspired by a box sent by Graze which I wanted to use a basis for my own product & packaging. Graze is 'healthy eating by post', where the recipient receives a compact, cardboard box containing 4 healthy products, delivered on a day suited to their needs.

This box contained an insert with 4 cut outs so the packaging for the food could slot in easily. These can be removed revealing the items photographed above - a napkin, book and a card containing the nutritional values of each item. 

I thought that a handy box containing items which can be used to avoid an alien abduction would be a quirky, fun and unique product. I wanted to create packaging which would be of a similar nature to the Graze box as not only can the product be sold in shops, for example, and bought as gift, it will also be small enough to fit through a letterbox.

Graze box dimensions:

Length x Width x Height = 240mm x 165mm x 25mm

I looked at creating my own prototype for the insert of my own product. I took an A4 sheet of black card and created a box with an open face at the bottom (simply top and 4 sides - much like the graze insert). I then created a cut out in one half the card which could feature a book, for example, or any other insert. Rather than leave it as it is, I wanted to devise a holding box rather than an empty cut out. Again, I used another piece of card using the same dimensions and created a similar open-faced box and stuck this to the inside.

I used black card as the packaging featured at the bottom of this post looked clean & professional - a sort of juxtaposition of styles in order to enhance the humour. Hopefully at first glance, people will deem the product as an established guide to avoid an alien abduction when infact it contains quirky and potentially comedic illustrations to portray these alien abduction tips.

Collection 100 - Development of Type

I looked at various fonts which I could use to form the text for each illustration/image. I looked at sci-fi style fonts along with minimalist sans-serif fonts to gather a wide range of styles which I believe would suit the nature of the product.

I decided to choose the font entitled 'SAF'. Although it was originally used for promotional materials advertising the South Africa World Cup, I think it ties in with the humour and quirky aspect of my product due to the rounded lettering. 

For the rule itself, I decided to keep it minimalist, using Helvetica Neue Bold and the caption in the Regular weighting to avoid any clash of style between the two fonts.

Here I have looked at aligning the text to the left on different coloured backgrounds:

Collection 100 - Colour

As I needed a consisted colour scheme to feature throughout my product/s, I chose a green which I believed reflected the stereotypical portrayal of aliens. C = 29, M = 0, Y = 65, K = 0.

I needed another colour which would form the backgrounds of my illustrations. As most abduction stories begin at night, I thought a dark blue would be a suitable choice. C = 68, M = 53, Y = 0, K = 63.

Using Adobe Kuler, I inputted the CMYK value to create a colour scheme I could use for the basis of my designs. I first chose the green and found different shades (variations of the base colour's hue).

I then inputted the CMYK values for green and looked at different colour schemes using Kuler's default 'rules'. The following (Triad) uses a triangle around the colour wheel for a contrasting theme and as you can see, a green which is similar to the ones from the previous outcome appears.

I also looked at a complimentary colour scheme for different backgrounds depending on the setting etc.

Using these outcome, I chose a basis colour scheme consisting of 4 colours. The blue and dark grey will form the backgrounds whereas the greens will form the ground/aliens/other objects, with the addition of various other colours, depending on the illustration. White will be prominent throughout the designs as I want to use this as the basis of the all the figures/non-alien entities. 

Collection 100 - Initial design ideas

As I wanted to create an "Alien Abduction Kit", I first began creating initial designs which would form the cover/packaging of the contents. As I intended the outcome to be humorous with a tongue-in-cheek aspect, I wanted the illustrations/content to be represented through simple vector figures/designs. This seemed to fit my idea more-so than using photographic imagery.